Talk:Tron

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus to move. Several people think that the film is not the primary usage, and it is always safer to have the disambiguation page as the main page. —Mets501 (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

• Tron → Tron (disambiguation)
• Tron (film) → Tron

The most common meaning of "Tron" seems to be the film. The other alternatives given are directly inspired by the film or refering to far more obscure computer-related topics. And, of course, a 35,000-inhabitant district in Thailand. The majority of links to Tron are links that clearly intend the film rather than any of the other alternatives. / Peter ^Isotalo 16:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

[edit] Support

1. Support. I think the film is probably the most common use of this term. — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
2. Support --Yath 20:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Per nom. --Serge 23:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Support Easily the primary usage. --Groggy Dice T | C 01:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Support Till I looked at the disambig page, I didn't even think there was another usage. 205.157.110.11 23:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
6. Support, definitely the most common reference for the term. Though I still wonder what this has to to with Japan (someone listed it on the WP:JA page). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

   Apparently not too many people know, but the TRON Project is of Japanese origin.--Endroit 20:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

7. Support - Nearly everyone I talk to has heard of TRON, and thinks of the movie first thing when the word is mentioned. The game always comes second, since it's based on the movie (despite the game doing better than the movie initially). — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
8. Support - per nom and 日本穣. I'm also confused why this was linked from WP:JA. -- Exitmoose 01:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

   I hope if you read the TRON Project article, you will be satisfied how that article describes a predominantly Japanese creation. Now whether that topic is significant enough or not is another story. The listing in WP:JA was to get you people from there to comment, just to make sure.--Endroit 02:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

   Ah, understood. TRON Project seems like a reasonably important article for those interested in the minutiae of computing, but there's certainly no comparison to the film. Nonetheless, quite considerate of you all. -- Exitmoose 13:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. Oppose Although only us grey-haired geeks remember that Disney got the name from the TRace ON command. :) Anyway, seems to me that everything is exactly where it should be, so I really do not see the need for this conversation. This is an encyclopedia, not a reference of popular or most-popular usage. The DAB page provides the best mechanism for complete accuracy. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 20:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

   Actually, the most common and intuitive meanings are supposed to be prioritized when making decisions about disambiguation (WP:D#Primary_topic). I have a hard time seeing this kind of move as thoughtless content populism. Being a geek, you should also keep in mind that computer aficionados are a very, very small minority even in industrialized countries, but extremely over-represented on Wikipedia. Despite this, the majority of the non-disambiguated linking to Tron is quite clearly about the film. / Peter ^Isotalo 13:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

2. Oppose There are too many varied uses. Better to leave as it is. -- Beardo 21:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose — See my explanation in the discussion below.--Endroit 23:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose. I see nothing wrong with an "extra" (film) disambiguation tag or two. And with a disambiguation page that big, there's obviously a lot of things "Tron" could mean. --Quuxplusone 20:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)~
5. Oppose. Considering the many uses listed in the dab page, although it's clear that the film should be the first item of the list, I don't think it's such a universal primary topic as to deserve the "Tron" article name. I believe that readers will be served best by having everything as it is now, getting to the disambiguation first and having the article on the film just one more click away. - Evv 03:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

   I don't see that this would benefit anyone but a tiny minority of readers who know about computer minutiae (people who also tend to be extremely adept when it comes to internet searches), but have never heard of the film. It would be rather analogous to linguists, amateurs or not, who are dumbfounded by major topics like Dravidian languages but know everything about minutiae like labiodental flaps. It really seems like a lot of these topics are given undue prominence at the expense of the average reader. I think it's more constructive to assume that those who type in a certain sequence of letters and press the Go-button at least have some idea about what topic they're trying to look up. Dabpages are supposed to handle requests for specific articles that the reader doesn't know the precise name of, not random searches. / Peter ^Isotalo 18:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

   I agree in general with having primary topics at the "main name", but I just don't think that this film is prevalent enough for the purposes of an encyclopedia. Things that are clearly a primary topic in popular culture do not necessarly remain so when opening a book or from an encyclopedic point of view, because the parameters used are different.
   For me personally, this one is an unclear borderline case: and in such cases I prefer to let readers choose from among the items of the dab page, instead of deciding for them based on my personal perceptions of usage (which are derived entirely from popular culture, since I see computers as incomprehensible magical boxes :-). - Best regards, Evv 01:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

   We are not Encyclopedia Britannica. Everything short of pure, unadultarated cruft is per definition encyclopedic and the Wikipedia community, not a vaguely defined group of commercial encyclopedists, defines what should be encyclopedic. And if you consider the film of dubious notability, then how obscure isn't TRON project to most people? I feel as if there's a rather arbitrary bias towards certain knowledge, namely computer science over pop culture, in this line of argumentation.

   And frankly, I really doubt that even EB would consider a deceased German hacker or a fairly non-notable computer project to be more notable than the first motion picture ever that featured proper computer graphics. / Peter ^Isotalo 13:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

6. Oppose. per -Endroit's pretty accurate recollections below. The arcade game had a much longer popularity than the movie (which was during the heyday of arcade games), so if that is the benchmark, the game should be at Tron. It's better for Tron to be the disambiguation page for what is now a fairly obscure movie and computer arcade game. ^BlankVerse 13:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

Or how about this?

• Tron is moved to Tron (disambiguation)
• Tron is created as a redirect to Tron (film)
• Tron (film) has one of the {{otheruses}} disambigation templates on it back to Tron (disambiguation)

This way the article naming police cannot yell about removing the (film) part, but people who go looking for it find Tron and if you wanted something else, the dambig is right there in your face.

 — MrDolomite | Talk 16:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why the naming police would yell about removing "(film)" if the primary meaning of "Tron" is the film. Keeping a redirect from Tron to Tron (film) just means that we'd be using a very intuitive and non-piped link only as a redirect. We might as well skip the first step of your proposal and get the exact same result but without the longer title. And removing "(film)" effectively eliminates any chance of bickering over whether it should be "(movie)" or not...

-Peter ^Isotalo 17:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Making Tron a redirect to Tron (film) is totally unnecessary. I have no idea why any "naming police" would suggest it. --Yath 20:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

According to my recollection.... Tron (film) and Tron (arcade game) were both released at around the same time (1982) and they complemented each other in the beginning. By the latter 1980s, Tron (film) was largely forgotten while Tron (arcade game) remained popular. By sometime in the 1990s, Tron (arcade game) had become just as obscure as Tron (film). And today, Tron (film) is still obscure, requiring disambiguation with the likes of Tron (arcade game) and Japan's TRON Project.--Endroit 10:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It's my impression that the film has always been more well-known than the game. The film is not obscure at all, having been well-known from the time it was released to the present. --Yath 22:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The article (Tron (arcade game)) does say "The game earned more than the film's initial release," which confirms that the arcade game was more popular than the film in the latter 1980s. That's unless you have a different set of data to prove your point.--Endroit 23:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

That was in the 80s. Things that were more popular then aren't necessarily what people remember the best today. One quick googling and a check at the linkage here (in a community where the arcade game aficionados are ridiculously over-represented) shows that the film seems to be the most remembered, and that's hardly surprising. More people, even today, watch the films than play the video games.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with your assessment, Peter: The film is more popular than the arcade game among aficionados today. But still, it is virtually unknown to the general public, meaning a disambiguation would help.--Endroit 17:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

For a comparison, see the article Mario, a prime example of a topic with truckloads of topics, but which still places one topic, deemed to be the most intuitive, under the non-disambiguated title. Claiming that there are "too many varied" uses is not a good description of the situation, since topics like the Japanese programming project and the alias of the now-deceased German hacker are not even remotely notable when compared to the film.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

To be analogous with the Mario article, you'd have to combine Tron (film), Tron (arcade game), and other related articles together. But still, people don't know "Tron" at the same level as Mario today. It's better to disambiguate, since there are other uses for the word "Tron" as well.--Endroit 17:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Mario is an article about a video game character, not a general collection for all things Mario. Its equivalent would actually be Tron (character). That there are many different meanings for "Tron" doesn't change the situation. There are many other terms that mean very different things, but which have one primary meaning. Terms are disambiguated merely because of diversity, but because the different topics would be equally notable. The only topics that approach the general recognition enjoyed by the film are the various spin-offs of that film. The rest are rather obscure, computer-related topics.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Tron (arcade game) was one of the most popular arcade game released in 1982. (Dig Dug and Millipede (arcade game) were more popular, of course). And the game was released prior to the release of the film.[1] Parts of the arcade game imagery appears in the film also, most particularly the "light cycle". So you cannot say that everything is based on the film, because Tron (arcade game) and Tron (film) relied on and complemented each other. The film gave you the illusion of a human being actually going inside the arcade game, so Tron (arcade game) was instrumental to the film. Tron (arcade game) and Tron (film) are both equally important. You just cannot discredit Tron (arcade game) by claiming it to be an offshoot of the film.--Endroit 10:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Though it was very likely that the arcade game was released to drum up interest in the film. That kind of thing happens quite frequently, and since both were released at nearly the same time (and given the much longer lead time needed to complete CGI effects then—even the simple-by-today's-standards effects used in the film) this becomes even more likely. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.